This invention pertains to a plural story pipe-support system, and more particularly to such a system which features, in association with a pipe-support frame, quickly installable and uninstallable, worker-access, outrigger lateral scaffolding. Especially, the invention proposes a pipe-support frame system having an open, plural-story pipe-support frame which is characterized (a) with plural columns that are substantially uniformly spaced along each side of the frame, (b) by substantially horizontal, pipe-support levels, and (c) by selectively graduated, frame-support-level-indifferent, lateral-connectivity access, along, for example, a selected side of the frame, for quickly managed (i.e., attached), gravity-attachable/removeable, modular, outrigger lateral, worker-support scaffolding units that are employable both as relatively short-length individuals, and as longer longitudinal assemblies of plural, end-to-end(endo)-disposed, adjacent unit individuals. The terms “pipe” and “pipeline” are used interchangeably herein to refer to lengths of pipe that are stored/supported, or intended to be stored/supported, on the frame.
The concept, just expressed, referred to as frame-support-level-indifference is a concept involving special accommodation in the system of the invention for the selectively versatile provision of vertically spaced, user-chosen graduated points of frame connectivity for the where-required installation of lateral scaffolding units at any elevation regarding the system frame.
The modularity feature of the present invention, in relation, from one perspective, to the gravity-attachable/removeable scaffolding units of the invention as individuals, is associated with, and nearly the same as, the length between the ends of such individual units—a length referred to herein as one which is “modularly associated” with, and preferably about the same length as, the substantially uniform, axial-centerline-to-axial-centerline spacing extant between each pair of adjacent columns distributed along a side of the system frame. From another perspective, modularity, in accordance with another form of the invention, is associated with endo-associated assemblies of plural, individual scaffolding units, the overall lengths of which assemblies closely match the axial-centerline-to-axial-centerline spacings between respectively differently pairs of spaced columns distributed along a frame side.
As will become apparent, the frame and modular scaffolding of the invention may be designed to allow (a) for convenient, temporary scaffolding attachment and deattachment when and as needed along any side of the system frame, (b) for attachment and detachment of different scaffolding lengths, as enabled by selective, endo juxtapositioning of individual scaffolding units along a frame side, and (c) for attachment and detachment at any elevation in the frame, not necessarily vertically aligned with a pipe support level offered in the frame.
One of the important features of the system of the present invention, related to the use herein of the term “outrigger”, is that the scaffolding structure proposed by the invention is supported truly as an outrigger structure in relation to a pipe-support frame, deriving all of its positional support, and its stability in space, through attachment to such a frame, rather than through independent, scaffolding-associated, ground support. Traditional scaffolding structures, while they may be anchored laterally to a building frame under construction for lateral stability, nonetheless are typically directly and independently supported through underlying structure which contacts the ground. Such a traditional arrangement is subject to scaffolding-support instability created by post-scaffolding-installation and -assembly ground-condition changing, such as softening of the ground, for example, softening which might occur in relation to permafrost.
The present invention's featuring of the “outrigger” support concept for scaffolding completely avoids this prior, traditional scaffolding-support problem.
The present invention enters the stage of contribution to the art now at a special societal time associated with the world of fluid energy delivery.
As fluid-flow, energy-resource facilities now proliferate in this era of high-demand, world-wide energy thirst—with such facilities typically themselves including, and outwardly connecting with, massive, miles-extensive energy-fluid (gas, oil, etc.) pipelines—huge, multi-level frame systems are required to support these pipelines. In this setting, there is a significant need, of both installation-initial and ongoing characters, for regular, efficient and easily and inexpensively furnished worker accommodation for safe and convenient frame-system and supported-pipeline access, at all frame-structure levels of pipeline support, to perform various pipeline-associated tasks. One form of a pipeline-support frame system of the type now being discussed is generally illustrated in currently copending, Regular U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/730,949, filed Dec. 29, 2012, for “Modular, Six-Axis-Adjustable, Concrete-Pour Form-Structure System”. Accordingly, and for background reasons herein, the disclosure content of this copending, regular patent application is also hereby incorporated herein by reference. A similar frame system is presented herein as a useful model for describing the present invention, recognizing that the present invention may be implemented with a very wide variety of specific, pipe- or pipeline-supporting frame-structure forms.
To address the pipeline management environment outlined above, one embodiment of the present invention, viewed from a high-level point of view, proposes a pipe-support system having plural, substantially horizontal, pipe-support levels, and featuring selectively graduated, support-level-indifferent, lateral-connectivity access for quickly available, removeable, gravity attachment of modular, outrigger, lateral scaffolding.
This proposed system includes:
(a) open, plural-level, pipe-support frame structure formed with plural columns interconnected by beams disposed in different, vertically spaced, common-elevation layers that define plural, substantially horizontal pipe-support levels in the frame structure, this frame structure having an elongate side possessing a distribution of substantially uniformly spaced side columns,
(b) for each side column, a plurality of outwardly laterally accessible, gravity catch structures selectively anchored in plural, support-level-indifferent, vertically graduated locations to the column, and organized along the frame structure's elongate side in common-elevation rows,
(c) at least one elongate, modular, outrigger scaffolding unit having opposite ends, and a length which is modularly associated with the substantially uniform, spacing extant between adjacent side columns, and
(d) anchored adjacent each of the opposite ends of the at least one scaffolding unit, a pair of gravity hook structures, that are quickly and selectively connectable as a pair to a pair of column-adjacent gravity catch structures that reside in one of the common-elevation rows of catch structures.
The system just expressed further includes, in operative association with and below each of the gravity hook structures, an elongate, downwardly extending angular brace having a lower end which carries a stabilizing, appropriately configured, side-column-engaging bearing foot.
Another embodiment of the invention involves end-to-end assembly of two or more individual scaffolding units wherein adjacent units are effectively united through commonly shared intermediary subframe and gravity hook structure. This embodiment, in relation to the overall expression of the invention just set forth immediately above, and presented here in a defined, representative context of two, united, individual scaffolding units, may be described as one which includes, in addition to the mentioned at least one modular scaffolding unit, at least one other, like, modular scaffolding unit which is selectively endo-associable, endo-joined with the at least one unit, through connectively sharing, as an intermediary between these two units, a common subframe structure and a single gravity hook structure, thus to form a modular, length-extended, scaffolding-unit assembly which is associated with three gravity hook structures, and which is releasably frame-attachable collectively through all three of these gravity hook structures to three, successively disposed and available gravity catch structures that reside in one of the mentioned common-elevation rows of catch structures.
The various features and advantages that are offered by the present invention, some of which have been discussed generally above, will become more fully apparent as the detailed description of the invention which now follows is read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
The various structural components shown in the drawing figures, their proportions, and the relationships of these components with respect to one another, are not necessarily drawn to scale.